


better than bondage

by MsPooslie



Category: Black Panther (2018), Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Awesome Shuri (Marvel), Bucky Barnes & Shuri Friendship, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Bucky Barnes Recovering, Everyone Has Issues, F/M, Goat Herder Bucky Barnes, Goats, Mind Control Aftermath & Recovery, Natasha Romanov Is a Good Bro, Past Brainwashing, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Pre-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Wakanda (Marvel), death is better than bondage, killmonger was right
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-15
Updated: 2019-01-15
Packaged: 2019-10-10 11:45:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,551
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17425274
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MsPooslie/pseuds/MsPooslie
Summary: Bucky's recovery in Wakanda. post CA:CW pre AIW features post credits scene from Black Panther





	better than bondage

**Author's Note:**

> this was actually the first fic i wrote in my current iteration of writing (so not since the early 2000s when the HP books were still coming out) so its a little choppy and stylistically all over the place and doesn't really go anywhere because i got distracted by Texts from BB. It was originally posted on Tumblr but we all know what a hot mess that place is right now so I'm posting it here so its not lost forever.

When Bucky sees Natasha, he completely freaks out, "no one knows if this has worked! This is dangerous!"  
Shuri comforts to him, saying "if it triggers the programming, we will tell you to to do something constructive, I promise you we won't let you hurt anyone."  
So he stands in the center of his hut, free of bindings, and swallows his terror as Natasha starts to speak the words of the trigger.  
"Longing." He closes his eyes.  
"Rusted." He squeezes them tighter.  
"Furnace." He clenches both of his fists, gritting his teeth.  
"Daybreak." A single tear streams down his face, he seems about to hyperventilate.  
Seeing his distress, the rest she rattles off quickly, "Seventeen. One, Benign, Nine, Homecoming! One! Freight Car!"  
There is a pause as his breathing returns to normal. Shuri says, "Sergeant Barnes?" she glances at her notes, “oh! Soldier?”  
He opens his eyes and immediately lunges at Shuri grabbing her, Natasha instantly pulls her stingers just as Shuri says, through laughter, "it's fine! it's fine! I am OK!" Natasha realizes he is hugging Shuri as he spins her around.  
With a smile radiant as the sun, he turns to Natasha. "It worked. IT WORKED! I'm free. I am finally free!"  
  
A few hours later, his melancholy returns. Natasha finds him, staring at the stars with that all too familiar frown. She silently sits beside him in the tall grass and says, "I know how you are feeling, probably better than anyone you will meet." as he begins to shake his head, she grabs his arm, "difference is, I did mine of my own free will."  
He turns to her, scowling, "you girls had no free will, you were indoctrinated before you could even talk!"  
She nods, "yeah but...I LIKED it. I loved fighting and training. I WANTED to be an assassin. That was what made me so good. ALMOST as good as you--but it took, what, 20 years on and off to break you?" she glances sidelong at him, he is looking back at the stars, eyes full of memories, “and THEN how many times did you try to break free?”. She frowns, shaking her head, “I may have been brainwashed from young but at least they didn’t torture me to do it.”  
He gives her a defiant grimace, “more times than I care to count.”  
She sighs, knowing the consequences would have been dire. “Do you remember…”  
“Training you girls in the Red Room?” he finished when she trailed off, “yeah, I have only ever had my ass handed to me by girls half, hell--some a quarter!--of my size once in my life.” What he doesn’t tell her is that was one of the consequences for breaking through his programming in New York and slipped his handlers. He ended up at his old place in Brooklyn but didn’t know why. He even went as far as to knock on the door but didn’t recognize the young, red headed woman with the baby on her hip. They found him standing in the alley behind the old theater, staring at a garbage can lid on the ground. They ordered him to pull his punches on the girls and let them win, a confidence building exercise. He had broken 2 ribs and a collarbone. He laughs, mirthlessly, “you were the only redhead, and the only one who took a fifth turn.”  
She looks from him to the stars, “you were a legend, we wanted to impress you with our skills. Most of those girls had a huge crush on you afterwards.” she smiles at him, shyly, “even me. Hell, especially me. They hadn’t started us on the seduction side of training yet so fighting was how I was trying to flirt with you.”  
He turns to look at her as she averts her eyes, "I didn't know you were capable of embarrassment, Natasha," he smiles warmly at her and then frowns again, "but then I shot you. Twice."  
She rolls her eyes, "Clint shot me too, and now we're best friends! Besides, that wasn't you, NO! don't shake your head at me! That wasn't you. that wasn't your choice! Look at how happy you were today knowing you would never be forced to follow orders again. THAT is you, not the mindless soldier," she sighs deeply, "speaking of Clint, you should talk to him about being mind controlled, he's been on that ride too." shrugging, she lays back in the grass, "basically, no matter what you have done or have had done to you, one of us has had it too." She reaches out and pats his leg. We will make this right, it will just take time. Even Tony will come around, he's no saint!"  
Bucky lays his hand on hers and smiles then returns his eyes to the stars. They sit in companionable silence for hours.  
  
"So, I gotta ask. Goats?" Natasha chuckles, a few days later.  
"Oh, yeah! they are so great!" Bucky's face lights up with delight as he heads out of his hut to the water, where the goats are gathered. "Let's see, we've got Patches, Penny, Ginger--and Fred, of course, over there--and this one," he points to the one butting against the food trough, "is Steve, because he is a dumbass who just doesn't know when to quit fighting." Bucky laughs softly.  
Natasha walks over to Steve and pats his flanks, he immediately starts nuzzling her leg, "oh, Steve isn't so bad, he's just bull-headed."  
Bucky looks contemplative for a moment and finally says, "I am glad he has had you while this whole mess was happening. Even when you were fighting us, it was to protect him."  
"Yeah," she pauses, smiling, "he is really something else, like what I imagine it would be like to have a younger brother, always stirring up trouble, but you just gotta love him no matter how ba-" she broke off at the look on Bucky's face, "what?"  
"I--I just never heard someone talk about Steve with as much affection as I feel for him."  
They catch each other's eye and share a moment of appreciation for their mutual friend. Natasha is about to reach for Bucky's arm when Steve butts him in the leg.  
"OK, I know, you want your nummies!" he scratches Steve behind the ears and whistles for the other goats, as he reaches for the bag of food. Natasha is about to help him but he waves her off and gracefully pulls the strap over his head and starts to scatter the feed.  
"Do you miss it at all?"  
"What? That damned arm?" he glances at her and she nods "I miss MY arm, the one they gave me was always..." he sighs and shakes his head and looks out over the water, squinting against the memories, "that arm was a weapon, it was a tool that Hydra used to keep me in my place. If I--if I ever tried to fight back, they could turn it off, did you know that? So I would not only be down an arm but be hauling this dead weight around. Then, the real fight would begin and I would inevitably end up back on ice." He clears his throat and looks at her, "so no, I don't miss it. It has been an adjustment but now I have a technique for everything, and anything I can't do, the kids--the human ones not the goats” he flashes her a mischievous smile, “are more than happy to help me with, even sometimes when I don't want them to--hence the hair" he sighs and points at his half-up man-bun. He sets the feedbag back on its shelf and they head back into the hut.  
She grabs a lock of his hair by his neck, "I could cut it if you want" Natasha offered, "I used to cut Clint's until he met Laura."  
"And deny them their fun? No way!" he looks out the doorway at the children playing in a nearby field, "besides, it's kinda growing on me!" He waggles his eyebrows and Natasha groans at the pun.  
"Ugh! Old man puns, Steve does that too! What's with you two?"  
"It was the height of comedy when we come from!"  
She scoffs, "I don't think puns have EVER been the height of comedy!" and lightly punches him in the left shoulder. He winces, slightly. "Oh, sorry, does it still hurt? Do I need to have Shuri come look at it?"  
"No, it's just, nobody has touched me there, since I lost the arm anyway, except med techs. Everyone else seems too afraid. I didn't know that I was too, until now."  
She takes a step closer to him, "can--can I see?" she slowly reaches toward the scarf covering his shoulder. He nods and she gingerly lifts it. The map of scars shocks even her but she keeps her face neutral, "It has healed quite well, considering the multiple traumas it has had over the last 70 or so years. Shuri seems to have done a good job removing the left over broken pieces without causing more damage." She raises her other hand to run a finger along one of the scars. "this, looks like a burn?"  
Bucky won't look at her, "sometimes, they would apply the new tech hot, so it would sear to the skin and they would not have to wait until it healed before sending me on a mission."  
She closes her eyes at the thought of the pain, "and these?" running her finger along the scars fanning toward his chest.  
He gives her the defiant grimace, again. "A couple of times I tried to pry it off, especially in my sleep when it was new." He watches her face as she examines his shoulder that he hates so much, seeing no disgust or fear, only empathy.  
Her hand now runs down his side as she leans closer, planting a feather soft kiss on his collarbone, right on a cluster of scars that he hates.  
She lays her forehead on his shoulder for a moment and then looks up at him and the hunger and pain that she sees in his eyes shake her to her core. He leans down as if to kiss her and as he runs his hand up her side his thumb catches the hem of her shirt. He feels the scar where he shot through her to kill his mark, years ago and the memory floods him. Suddenly, he rears back. "I-I don't, can't," he is near hyperventilating as he turns his back to her, “I’m sorry.”  
“Oh, Bucky, no, no it’s ok.” She steps up to him, wrapping her arms around his torso, comfortingly, She lays her head on his shoulder blade. "It's ok, it'll be ok." He turns back to her and they share a long embrace.  
When he has steadied, he lays his chin on her head and looks out the door, squinting against the sunlight. He gives her a squeeze and heads out, where some children are waiting.  
She takes a deep, shuddering breath--it’s not many who can rattle her. She follows him out, smiling to see that he has sat on the ground, crossed legged, and three small girls have started braiding his hair.  
"What are they calling you?"  
"It means 'white wolf' it is a legend--a man was turned into a wolf by a sorcerer and had to chew off his leg to escape.” He raises his eyebrows at her at the aptness of the nickname as a small boy climbs into his lap, laughing. The boy and Bucky chatter in Wakandan for a few minutes while Natasha settles in next to them, Steve immediately prances over to her and butts her in the shoulder, then lays down next to her while she pets his ear.  
“It’s a pretty good life you have built for yourself here.”  
“Yeah, this is more than I had ever hoped for, in those moments that I could think for myself. Even in Bucharest I was just...existing.” Another child calls and waves to the boy and jumps up quickly followed by the three girls as they run back to the game. “Do you ever think about retiring? Settling down?”  
“You know, I sorta did, a few years back, I had it pretty serious for this guy. But I haven’t heard from him in,” she blows out a breath, squinting, “three? years.” after Sokovia, he basically dropped off the map. He had a bad time there, couldn’t control the big guy. I think he won’t come back, he never wanted to be in the fight either.” She takes his hand, “I know you aren’t ready, but I will be there when you are, if you decide this is something you could want.” She drops his hand, reaching for his face, and runs her thumb over his bottom lip then her phone buzzes in her pocket. She grits her teeth in frustration and pulls back. “Speaking of the fight, that’ll be Steve. Not you” she scratches Steve the goat’s ears as he perks up hearing his name then lightly pushes him away and comes to her feet, pulling the phone from her pocket. “He’s got a line on a terrorist cell in Syria with Chitauri tech, I’ve gotta go.” She gives Bucky a sad smile.  
As she starts to walk away, Bucky grabs her arm and pulls her back to him. taking a deep breath, he kisses her on the cheek. “Be safe out there, know when to quit fighting, ok?”  
She pushes a lock of his hair behind his ear and stands back straight, “I’ll try, I promise.”  
  
Later that day, Bucky was resting in the heat of the afternoon and had dozed off. When he opens his eyes, three children are staring down at him. When he moves they run out, giggling, to Shuri who is waiting outside. As he walks over to her, she smiles and nods at him, “Good morning, Sergeant Barnes.”  
He looks at her for a moment before deciding, “Bucky.”  
She nods, affirming the moniker "how are you feeling?"  
He glances over the water, then looks at her, “Good,” he gives her a small smile and says genuinely, “thank you.”  
She smiles and touches his chest, “come,” she begins to walk away, “much more for you to learn.”  
He looks out over the water for a moment before turning and following her.  
They walk She begins by explaining how his trigger words worked, how they were all tied to traumas from his past. “I know you come from a time when men were not supposed to talk about their emotions,” she gives him a tight lipped smile, “but you really have to learn to not bottle things up.”  
He nods, prudently, “yeah, wouldn’t want to mess up my shiny new brain.”  
“We have healers you could talk to, it is a long tradition here, to listen to our elders” She nudges him, chuckling at her joke, “you are, what, 100 years old now?”  
He lets out a bark of laughter, “One-oh-one, actually, and that’s a low blow, KID.”  
They walk for hours; talking about his recovery, things he missed while she worked on removing the Hyra programming like the disaster that was Killmonger’s rise and fall, which inevitably lead to the shame of how people were and still are treated by Bucky’s country. They reach a cliff and sit down. While they look out over the valley, the sun starting to set, they finally fall into silence.  
He suddenly laughs, but there is no humor in it, “Killmonger was right about one thing, though,” he finally says, tossing a small rock over the side of the cliff. It is several long minutes before he continues, and when he does, there is a tremble in his voice “death is better than bondage.” His bottom lip quivers as he tries to hold it back but he remembers her advice and pushes on, “when I would do something outside of my programming, even something small,” he closes his eyes and grits his teeth against the memories of pain. Shaking his head, he takes a deep breath before continuing, “there would be consequences”.  
He suddenly gets up, walking away from her a bit. She had seen him do this before, remove himself from those around him, usually right before he shut down emotionally so she stands up gracefully and follows him, “Bu--” she stops as he rounds on her, pain in his eyes.  
“I tried,” he almost growls through gritted teeth, fist balled, “I tried to be strong.” He swallows several times, trying to get his emotions back under control, “I tried, but there were times,” his voice breaks, “….when I would beg,” he clenches his jaw again and tries to breathe deeply but it comes as a shutter, “...beg them to kill me,” he looks away from her as his face crumples. He takes several shuddering breaths, and suddenly he is shouting toward the sky, “I TRIED! I TRIED!” over and over until he falls to his knees, covering his face with his hand. She reaches down, rubbing his shoulder and he leans against her for a moment, breathing in large gasps. “I tried,” he says once more before breaking down, weeping like an injured child.  
She sits down next to him and he curls into her embrace. She holds him tight, rubbing his back and rocking him slightly, telling him he is ok. After a few minutes, his breathing calms and he sits up straighter, rubbing the remaining tears from his eyes. He swallows several times before speaking again, “I tried, but it wasn’t enough.”  
“It wasn’t your fault,” she says as he pulls away from her, she squeezes his left shoulder, he looks away, shaking his head. “Look at me, Bucky. Look at me and hear my words--it wasn’t your fault, none of it was. For every crime committed by the Winter Soldier, there were two victims; the one in front of the gun, and the one behind it.”  
He sniffles once more and nods, accepting this small bit of forgiveness for himself. They sit, side by side, for several minutes in silence. Eventually Shuri lays her head on his left shoulder and he looks down at her, noticing for the first time that she isn’t afraid of him. This girl. This amazing girl who set him free. And he smiles in gratitude and lays his cheek on her head. As the sun dips below the horizon, she says, “I am not sure it is good for you to be alone, you should have dinner with the family tonight.”  
He gives her a tight smile, “thank you, for this, and for the offer, but i think i will go back and rest. Is it always this exhausting?”  
“No, each time it will get a little easier.” she stands, offering a hand up. He takes it and stands with a grunt. “I will come and see you again in a few days, If you need anything before then, give me a call.” She hands him a phone, pre-programmed with the phone numbers of herself, Steve, and Natasha. He takes it into his palm and gives her a 2-finger army salute, which causes her to laugh, and they go their separate ways.

Weeks go by as Bucky works hard, both on caring for the goats and on reconciling with his past. And then one day Natasha is just there, walking across the field toward him. He runs to her and pulls her into his one armed embrace, picking her up and swinging her in a circle. Setting her back on her feet, he smiles down at her. “I missed you,” he pulls her close to him again then holds her at arm's length. “Shuri said that i would heal faster if i learned to not bottle things, so here goes,” he continues in a rush, “before when Steve was out there I thought I could lose him. And with him everything, everything that I used to be would be gone. Every time there’s news, I think, ‘this time he’s done it, pushed too far, and isn’t coming back.’ and then I remember you are there, right next to him and my heart drops into my stomach and I realized how much i had come to care for you.” He clears his throat and looks at the ground but before he can continue, she pulls his face closer to hers. She sees a slight fear in his eyes as she runs her fingers up the nape of his neck to lace in his hair. “Don’t be scared, I’m not going to hurt you.”  
He swallowed hard “I just, I haven’t been allowed to have feelings like this in, Christ, 70 years! It takes a bit to...adjust to the idea.”  
She pulled back slightly, “hey, we can take it as fast or slow as you want,” she lets go of his hair and takes his hand, leading him to the edge of the water. She fills him in on the infiltration they did in Syria and leans back, soaking in the sun. “God it is hot! Can we swim in this lake?”  
He raises his eyebrows without saying a word and points to a group of kids playing in the water across the lake. “Did you bring a suit?”  
“Who needs a suit?!” she says, jumping up and dropping her shorts, revealing plain, black, boy-cut panties. She pulls off her top to reveal a matching sports style bra. “I’ve got more on than most swimsuits cover nowadays anyway, and i figure you won’t mind the scars.” She dives into the water, just skimming under the surface before popping back up, “come on, Bucky! I assume you can swim.”  
He stares at her, mouth agape, seconds ticking by. He shakes himself out of the shock of her boldness and stands up, dropping the scarf and his robe, leaving only navy blue boxer-briefs underneath. He quickly follows suit and dives into the water, making almost no splash and comes up immediately behind her, whispering in her ear, “of course I can swim, dollface.”  
She whips around almost taking his head off, nobody has been able to get the drop on her for years. He still has lightning reflexes though, and ducks under the water grabbing at her ankles as he swims by. “Oh-ho! It’s gonna be like that, is it? Challenge accepted!” She begins watching the water for eddys and lightning fast reaches down and plucks him up by the elbow, “two can play at that game, buster,” she chucks him backwards and dives in the opposite direction.  
He swims closer to the bank and stands up in the water, flinging his hair out of his eyes as she comes up beside him and sweeps his legs out from under him. On his way down he grabs her ankle, pulling her down too. They both come up spluttering and laughing, clinging to one another. They bob in the water for a moment and then he is kissing her. Slowly at first, planting feather soft kisses on her lips, trailing down her neck. She laces her fingers in his hair and pulls his face back to hers and they come together like the intensity builds until he pulls back and they are both gasping for air. They hold each other close, lingering in the feeling. He kisses her softly on the temple and lets her go, gliding away from her in the water, his face to the sky. He looks so happy and at peace, she says a little prayer to whatever god might be listening that he can stay that way. 

Later that night, they are sitting around a small fire he has built. He takes her hand and bringing it to his face, nuzzling her palm then lets out a contented sigh. She moves closer to him, settling into the crook of his arm, her head resting gently on his chest. “Natasha?”  
“Yes, whatever it is, yes.”  
He thinks a moment, trying to come up with something absurd he could have been about to ask her. “Ok, pookie bear it is.” this elicits the glare of response he expected and he lets out a bark of laughter. “But seriously, can I call you Nat?”  
She smiles up at him, “of course, but only if i can call YOU pookie bear.”  
Another bark of laughter, “it’s a deal, dollface.” He suddenly turns serious, and slightly nervous, “will you stay with me tonight? I promise, no funny business, I just would like to not be alone”.  
She sidles over to his lap, wrapping her arms gently around his neck, “of course, pookie bear.” she gives him a kiss on the cheek and goes to get up but he pulls her back down. “I thought you said no funny business, Sergeant Barnes.”  
“Do you see me laughing, Agent Romanov?” he crushes her to him in a heated embrace.  
She covers his face with kisses, gently kissing his eyelids, his nose, the corners of his mouth before finally coming to rest in a languid kiss that leaves them both panting.  
He suddenly stands up, heaving her over his shoulder, carrying her into his hut. When he sets her down she sees he has already made preparations for her to stay. There is an over-sized shirt for her to wear and a new toothbrush. Tucked beside his pillow, almost out of site is a small, stuffed, white dog that looks like a child had made. She picks it up, hugging it to her chest, “White Wolf,” she says while he shuts the curtain and ties it down for the night, “the man who would chew off his own hand to be free”.  
He steps to her, “I would have done anything it took, had i any memory of what freedom was like.” He trades the dog for the shirt, “I have this for you to sleep in.” She tries to hold eye contact with him while she removes her shirt but he turns his back to her, suddenly shy.  
This causes her to chuckle, “once a guy from the 40s, always a guy from the 40s, i guess. It’s ok, you can turn around now.” She steps to the small sink to brush her teeth, giving him her back, in case he feels shy undressing in front of her. When she turns around, he is wearing only gym-type shorts and yawning. She crawls into the small bed as he quickly brushes his own teeth and splashes water on his face.  
He turns and she is playing with the stuffed dog, “oh if only the world could see you now, they would be shocked!” he chuckles as he crawls in and then over her. “I have to sleep with my back against the wall, is that OK?”  
She snuggles her back against his chest, “that is fine, can I hold this guy, or do you want him?” she bounces the dog along his arm which he has draped over her stomach. She waits for an answer but he is already asleep.

**Author's Note:**

> my notes in the google doc say "then Sexy Times? nat has to go--end of world alert AGAIN" because of Infinity War so....the end i guess.


End file.
